Schubert, Szymanowski

Album review

The third album from Lucas Debargue with Sony Classical, this is a very original programme - the previous album offered a mixture of Bach, Beethoven and Medtner - which combines two Schubert sonatas (D.874, 1823, and D.664, 1819, respectively) and the ambitious Piano Sonata No. 2 (1910-11) from Szymanowksi, with post-Regerian momentum. Lucas Debargue, who sent shockwaves at the last Tchaikovsky competition, opens his new work with Sonata in A Minor, and gives it some truly tragic, wintry tones,  in the style of certain Russian pianists (Richter, Sofronitzky, etc.): a black and white keyboard, lit up by a recording effort that in no way dulls the harmonics. The cheeriest Sonata in A Major - which was a favourite of Wilhelm Kempff - has a similarly staid character, rather reserved. To be honest, this album seems to owe more than a little to Sviatoslav Richter. If Schubert was one of Richter's "obsessions", the Piano Sonata No. 2 from Szymanowksi was also at the heart of the Russian pianist's repertoire, who performed it several times in concert (e.g. at Parnassus, the concert for the centenary of Szymanowksi's birth on 26 November 1982 in Warsaw). A convulsive, tortured work, it is made up of two amply developed movements, which are very dark, dense and complex, including a theme and variations, crowned by a tremendous fugue. © TG/Qobuz